Honolulu Community College’s Student Services Division remains a developing program that must continue to make adjustments so that it can better position itself to support the College’s work toward meeting its Strategic Goals. More importantly, the Student Services Division must keep an open mind toward new approaches, develop flexibility to address change in students and the professional environment, and remain innovative in its approaches to supporting our students to ensure that they are better prepared for the workplace and life.

Data for Academic Years 2011-2012 indicates little to no growth in several areas. Overall student growth remains somewhat stagnant with a slight decrease in Recent High School Graduates. While progress has been made in the awarding of Financial Aid, operationally the office is still challenged by the transition to systematized processing. Most of the challenges are due to lack of staffing and changing processes in the midst of the Financial Aid Year. Persistence rates remain similar to prior years, but there is still an expectation that rates will increase over the next few years as the College’s newer Essentials policy and curriculum efforts are fully realized. Data for degrees and certificates awarded were higher than last year, and also expected to increase as the college continues to focus on completion efforts.

CCSSE data for 2012 are somewhat similar to past years. Students continue to place great importance in many key Student Services, and yet still remain lukewarm in their satisfaction of our performance. To address this, an internal satisfaction survey will be implemented in Spring 2013 with the idea of creating an action plan based on findings. Results of this survey will also be mapped back to specific Student Learning Outcomes developed in the Student Services areas.

Finally, Fall 2012 marks the start of the “new” re-organized Student Services Division. With the creation of an additional Division of Academic Support, the Student Services Division will now have other key partners as the college creates and implements student success strategies. New leadership in both of these divisions reaffirms the college’s commitment to progressive changes that can best help students.